Mohawk Warrior Society Flags Fly over Palestine

Mohawk Warrior Society Flag, also known as the Mohawk Unity Flag: "The flag of the Indigenous Kanien'kehá (Mohawk) nation in the mountains of Nablus city in the West Bank, Palestine, symbolizing a shared struggle against settler colonialism from Turtle Island to Palestine."

"A Mohawk Warrior Society flag was photographed in Jenin today following an Israeli incursion and attack in the city. The flag was photographed alongside a sign for the Jenin Brigade, illustrating the joint struggle against settler colonialism by indigenous people everywhere." Photographed today at Jenin refugee camp in Palestine. June 1, 2024, via Twitter/X.

U.S. Silences Voices for Palestine at Rutgers, on Same Day Mohawks Enter the Picture

Wikileaks exposed U.S. State Dept. cables revealing illegal wiretaps of Mohawks, and that Mohawks were the most spied on, and feared, of all those targeted. Censored News
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2010/08/wikileaks-canadas-unauthorized-wiretaps.html

U.S. Begins 'Civil Rights' Investigation to Silence Voices for Palestine at Rutgers, on Same Day Mohawks Enter the Picture

Rutgers University Shuts Down Students for Justice in Palestine -- U.S. Has New Hit List

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Dec. 14, 2023

Rutgers University suspended Students for Justice in Palestine, after the Biden administration announced a "civil rights investigation."

The Biden administration now has a "list" of schools under civil rights investigations.

It comes as no surprise that Rutgers University shut down Students for Justice in Palestine. The U.S. government's ethnic discrimination investigation began the same day that a film was shown, and the Mohawk Warriors entered the picture.

'Spaces of Exception' Film Exposes Atrocities and Genocide of Native People and Palestinians

'Spaces of Exception' film: Standing Rock, Oceti Sakowin Camp 2016

Photo: Debra White Plume, Oglala Lakota, in the film, "We Love Being Lakota," which evolved into the film, "Spaces of Exception." 


Spaces of Exception Film Exposes Atrocities and Genocide of Native People and Palestinians

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, November 17, 2023

MONTREAL -- The film Spaces of Exception revealing the atrocities and genocide of Native people -- Lakota, Navajo, and Mohawk -- and of Palestinians -- was shown in Montreal at McGill University. It is here at McGill that Mohawk Mothers have an ongoing court battle to search for graves of Native children at the hospital where the CIA conducted MK-Ultra torture experiments.

Most Censored in Indian Country 2021

Most Censored in Indian Country 2021

By Brenda Norrell, publisher

Censored News

The most censored issues in Indian country in 2021 include the death of Paiute Shoshone Journalist Myron Dewey; the kidnappings and assassinations of Yaqui in Sonora; the Mohawk Mothers demand for the search for residential school childrens' graves at a former CIA torture research site in Montreal; the failure of the Navajo Nation to distribute $2 billion in federal virus relief to Dine' in desperate need; and the destruction of O'odham sacred places on the Tohono O'odham Nation by Israel's Elbit Systems for the construction of spy towers for use by the U.S. Border Patrol.

Kahentinetha Horn and daughter on 'Coffee with My Ma' -- 'Ma Goes to Cuba in 1959: Just to See'

Kahentinetha Horn (right) with daughter Kaniehtiio Horn (left). Photo, courtesy Coffee With My Ma.

Listen to the incredible Kahentinetha Horn, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, and her daughter, actress Kaniehtiio Horn. On this episode, Kahentinetha, 19, and friends, went to Cuba and met Fidel Castro in 1959. It was years before they shared their story.

Article by Brenda Norrell

Censored News

Coffee with My Ma, broadcast by Kahentinetha Horn, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, and her daughter, actress Kaniehtiio Horn, is featured in an article on Flare, which shares nine Indigenous women's podcasts.

"Coffee with My Ma: The Premise: It is an incredibly simple set-up—a daughter asks her mother questions over coffee. But in the hands of actress Kaniehtiio Horn (Letterkenny, The Man in the High Castle) and her mom, Kahentinetha Horn, the results are fascinating," Flare writes.

Kahentinetha and family members were on the frontline at Oka. On the podcasts, she shares her rich history and memories, including attacks on the Mohawks throughout the decades, and the oppression and media misinformation they faced.

One of the duo's podcasts shares the story of Kahentinetha, when she went to Cuba at the age of 19, "Just to see."

It was 1959.

Kaniehtiio begins by describing how Fidel Castro, Che Guevaro, and farmers, overthrew the regime in control of the Cuban government -- because Cuba had become the playground of rich Americans.

Sharing her trip to Cuba, Kahentinetha tells how she and her three friends didn't have any money, but one wanted to interview Fidel Castro, so they drove down to Miami on their way to Cuba.

They had enough money for sandwiches.

One of her buddies had a relative in Miami, who slammed the door in their faces, since anyone trying to go to Cuba in those days was considered a 'Commie.'

So, they slept on the beach.

On the drive down, in Georgia, she wasn't allowed to use the white bathroom.
The sign said, "Whites Only."

Kahentinetha and her buddies bought Pan Am tickets from Miami to Cuba. It was the only flight they could find. The fares were  $15 and they had one credit card to put the fares on.

"No one was going there," she said of the flight. Most passengers were headed to Venezuela.

"The Americans were terrified," she said of visiting Cuba at the time.

So, they flew down to Havana. It was full of young people from all over, who were invited there by Castro.

 

They stayed in Havana at the Hilton with these young people.

 

"In the evening, Fidel would come over."

People were coming with baskets on their heads, she remembers.

Fidel's people drove the friends around, and they had a look at the mansions that Castro and his people had taken over. Their driver looked just like Fidel.

She said when they went to take their flight home, the lines were too long to reach the airport. The people that supported the oppressors were fleeing.

They believed they would have to take a raft back to Miami. So, they started asking around for a raft so they could paddle back home.

So, one of Fidel's people took them to the airport by another route.

They still had little money, so riding in their jalopy back home, they picked food along the way, including pecans in Georgia.

For years, she never talked about the trip to Cuba.

Kahentinetha said what Fidel faced was an impossible situation. The people had become slaves to the white American casino owners.

Then, Russia went in to help them.

"I didn't meet Che," she said of the freedom fighter assassinated by CIA forces, while trying to bring freedom to the Indigenous miners in Bolivia, South America.
Che was still alive when she visited Cuba.

"The only one I saw was Fidel."

Tall, imposing, and very dedicated, is the way Kahentinetha describes Fidel Castro.

"I think the Americans absolutely hated him."

"He stood up to the Americans, and they couldn't get back in there."

Kahentinetha liked what she saw in Cuba.

She said in 1959 in Cuba, the people were starving to death. The people were skinny like skeletons.

 

"When I saw that, and what he wanted to do, I saw he was going to keep his promises."

"He did it," she said of Castro's advances in education, literacy and Medicare.

Listen to Coffee with My Ma:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/coffee-with-my-ma/id1372866076?mt=2

Read more about the dynamic 9 podcasts featured on Flare.com:

https://www.flare.com/identity/indigenous-women-podcasts/?fbclid=IwAR3i9sf3F_dQ7TdTnWbfjTwf8MKcDoam-xvSKHEZgNj1rNr9CDpZc12J1vA

Censored News on the Border: When the Mohawks came to the Tohono O'odham Nation
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-border-when-mohawks-came-to-tohono.html?fbclid=IwAR2zFb6oWIxoTLgFIvmvXG-xm1tj2tw3_2__RN_MZbXO1UZJPrFnQcs1ces

Revolutionary Native Women Writers -- Twelve Years of Original Energies at Censored News

Ofelia Rivas, Kahentinetha Horn, Sandra Rambler, Debra White Plume, Michelle Cook, Buffy Sainte Marie, Louise Benally.

Revolutionary Native Women Writers -- Twelve Years of Original Energies at Censored News

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

Censored News begins its 13th year of publishing in late September. Today we honor the Native women who were the first to share their voices and work with us. In the beginning, Censored News was a humble effort to reveal what had been censored when I was a staff writer at Indian Country Today. Through the years, it emerged, growing organically, as a platform for Indigenous Peoples and global human rights.
Kahentinetha Horn, long known for her defense of Oka, was among the first to generously share her work with Censored News. When Mohawks came to the southern border in 2006 and 2007, a powerful solidarity began between the north and the south, including the Zapatistas when Marcos and the Comandantes came to Sonora in 2007. Living in her homeland at Kahnawake, Kahentinetha publishes Mohawk Nation News, sharing guidance and words from the traditional teachings and the Mohawk Warrior Society. Kahentinetha writes the history that she lives.
Debra White Plume, revolutionary thinker and writer, living on her Lakota homeland on Pine Ridge, has shared her writings since the beginning. As the founder of Owe Aku International Justice Project, Debra has fought for the land, water and people, fighting against uranium mining and corruption, and fighting for truth and in defense of the land and water. When the Lewis and Clark re-enactors arrived in South Dakota, Debra gave them a symbolic "blanket of small pox." Censored News honored Debra twice previously as our 'Woman of Year' for her resistance.
Ofelia Rivas, O'odham lives on the Tohono O'odham Nation, at the so-called border that divides her family's homelands in what is now Sonora, Mexico, and Arizona. Ofelia exposed the construction crew on the border barrier digging up the remains of O'odham ancestors. The ancestors were later returned to their resting place with ceremony. She also exposed the Israeli spy towers now threatening O'odham communities. She has led the resistance to abuses by the U.S. Border Patrol in her homelands, and now delivers food and supplies to O'odham south of the border who are cut off from grocery stores by new border crossing  restrictions and closures of traditional routes. When the current US government halted migrants at the border, Ofelia welcomed them.
Michelle Cook, Dine' lawyer, has been a voice at Censored News since the beginning, sharing her experiences as a university student, first at the border, then in Iran, and later as she traveled from New Zealand, where she was a Fulbright scholar sharing with Maori, to the Mother Earth Conference in Cochabamba, Bolivia. At Standing Rock, she founded the Water Protector Legal Collective, and co-produced with Govinda Dalton, Standing Rock Spirit Resistance Radio, live from Oceti Sakowin. Michelle organized the bank divestment teams of Native women to Europe, hosted by WECAN International, in the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The long censored words of Louise Benally of Big Mountain, and Cree singer Buffy Sainte Marie, finally became known when I was terminated at Indian Country Today in 2006.
Earlier, Louise Benally spoke out against the bombing of Iraq on the day it was bombed by the United States, comparing it to the atrocities of the Dine' walking, suffering and dying on the Longest Walk to imprisonment. Louise remembered her ancestors at Fort Sumner, Bosque Redondo.
Indian Country Today censored Louise's voice and refused to publish a retraction. Louise continues to resist relocation at Big Mountain, orchestrated by Peabody Coal, energy barons and politicians.
Buffy Sainte Marie was at Dine' College on the Navajo Nation in 1999, joining John Trudell and other great Native musicians in concert. It was here that Buffy described how she was censored out of the music business by two U.S. Presidents -- Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan. The US Presidents disappeared her shipments of records and told radio stations not to play her songs. Buffy's stance against the Vietnam War, and her song "Universal Soldier," made her a target for the war machine. 
Buffy's words at Dine' College were censored for seven years by Indian Country Today, Even when some of those words were published in 2006, the portion about uranium mining on Pine Ridge was censored by Indian Country Today. Buffy has generously shared her work with Censored News since the beginning.
Sandra Rambler, San Carlos Apache writer and photographer, was among those censored by Indian Country Today, in the struggle of Apaches to protect their land and water from politicians and corporations. Sandra shared the voices of San Carlos Apache elders -- the force behind protecting the land and water, sacred Mount Graham and Oak Flat -- before the elders made their journey to the Spirit World.
These revolutionary Native women writers and thinkers share the same love, tenacity and freedom of spirit shown by Che in South America. It is their willingness to sacrifice and arise that inspires new generations and generates hope.
There are no words adequate to express gratitude to these revolutionary writers, thinkers and organizers who were the first to share their words, photos, travels and clear thoughts  with Censored News.
Today, their voices are joined with Indigenous women from around the Earth, and their words of resistance, dignity, autonomy and self-reliance, without compromise, are translated into languages worldwide.
We say 'thank you' for your original energies. Your love, passion and clarity has steadily exploded into inspiration and movements in the homelands and around the world.

In memory of the children, Dine' and Apache imprisoned at Bosque Redondo,
during the Longest Walk.

Dedicated to my friends, Cate Gilles, journalist on Navajo and Hopi lands, and Leroy Jackson, cofounder
of Dine' Citizens against Ruining the Environment, who were both found dead.
Without their running ahead, and showing the way, this ongoing work would not be possible.
Thank you.

Links:
Mohawk Nation News
http://www.mohawknationnews.com/

Owe Aku International Justice Project
http://oweakuinternational.org

Ofelia Rivas, O'odham, founder of O'odham Voice against the Wall
http://www.solidarity-project.org/

Louise Benally, uncensored on bombing of Iraq and the Longest Walk to imprisonment
http://bsnorrell.tripod.com/id78.html

The Blacklisting of Buffy Sainte Marie, by Censored News
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-blacklisting-of-buffy-sainte-marie.html

Michelle Cook, divestment team in Europe. Read more at WECAN, International
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2018/04/indigenous-womens-delegation-in.html

Sandra Ramber, Apache, The Gift of Water and the Apache Burden Basket
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/03/sandra-rambler-at-oak-flat-gift-of.html

Notes:
At Censored News, everyone is a volunteer. Censored News has published for 12 years with no salaries, grants, or revenues. Please donate to these powerful writers. Contact Censored News for contact information for writers, Brenda Norrell, publisher: brendanorrell@gmail.com 

Indian Country Today was created in the mid 1990s by Tim Giago, Lakota, who never censored my articles. After ICT was sold to the Oneida Nation in New York in the late 1990s, the censorship began. ICT was recently acquired by the National Congress of American Indians in Washington, D.C.

Copyright Brenda Norrell, Censored News

Chasing McCain Away: Brazen Acts of Native Americans in 2015

Chasing McCain off Navajo Nation

The brazen acts that the cardboard Flim Flam man of new media didn't want you to know in 2015


By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
copyright
French translation by Christine Prat
http://www.chrisp.lautre.net/wpblog/?p=3144

Apaches protesting Sen. McCain's
copper mine on sacred Oak Flat

Censored News pick for the most brazen act of 2015: Navajos Chasing Arizona Sen. John McCain off the Navajo Nation. Fabulously called "Sneaky Snake McCain," by San Carlos Apaches fighting McCain's new copper mine with McCain's best buddies at Resolution Copper, McCain's status as a bottom feeder is absolute. 

The fact that McCain is still on the US Senate Committee for Indian Affairs reveals that the Committee was set up to steal Indian land and water rights, and dupe everyone else into believing that the US system works.

Meanwhile, US Homeland Security gave the southern border security contract to Israel's defense contractor Elbit Systems, manufacturer of drones and Apartheid systems surrounding Palestine. 

Now, Elbit is on the southern border of Arizona and pushing its new spy towers on Tohono O'odham land in traditional O'odham communities. 

The District of Gu-Vo has said, "No!" to these spy towers which target traditional O'odham burial grounds.

However, Tohono O'odham human rights activists point out that the tribal government was long ago co-opted by the US government and is powerless to protect the Tohono O'odham people from the onslaught of the oppression of the US government and its new partner Israel.

The Bottom Line: Peabody Coal on Black Mesa

Louise Benally
Photo Christine Prat

Louise Benally of Big Mountain, testifying before the Bureau of Land Management about coal mining in Farmington, N.M, said it best this year.

Although the regional media has been bought and sold with Peabody Coal's dollars and the surrounding parasitic political influence, Louise Benally describes the 40-year-resistance to coal mining, relocation and McCain, in her testimony to the BLM:

In my community of Black Mesa in 1974 there was a Congressional legislation known as Public Law 93531 that was passed to remove 10,000 Navajos, 300 Hopis to make way for Peabody coal company. 

As of today BLM is the major owner of Navajo Generating Station, and if we're going to talk about climate change justice for all, let's shut Navajo Generating Station down! Because it is allowed to continue to pollute and to kill people. This is ongoing as of today. 

I want that you as the people of the Department of the Interior do your activities and call the Hopi government to stop impounding people's animals. The sheep, the goats, the horses, the cattle is what we live off of. That's our food. That's our economy. That's all we have. 

We don't have electricity. We don't have running water. 

Yet the power that is pumped out of Black Mesa goes down to where John McCain is laid out in the sun with his shades on, and he needs to stop stealing our water. 

The Colorado River, he's after again, after we told him so many times no.

The utility companies, they eat the earth up here, suck out her breath out, so they can get electricity and, you know, we are left with nothing. Period. Nothing. Except ourselves and what we have. But yet these coal companies are polluting our air, killing our environment, killing our people through actions of flawed policies. This needs to stop. We're sick and tired of your greed!

Throughout the continent, the Arctic drilling needs to stop. The pipeline for the oils in the Midwest need to stop that's coming out of Alberta. You're sending all that to other countries. India and China needs to be taught how to convert to renewable energies that don't pollute. That's the only hope we have.

Now, do your job. Make that change.

US Border Patrol: An Occupying Army

On the issues of the occupying Army of the US Border Patrol on Tohono O'odham land, and what this means for sovereignty, Mike Wilson, Tohono O'odham, and Mark Maracle, Mohawk Warrior, said it best.

Mike Wilson, Tohono O'odham, described documenting the abuse by the US Border Patrol and an increase in violence toward O'odham by border agents. Wilson described the US Border Patrol as an occupying army on the Tohono O'odham Nation.

"The Tohono O'odham tribal government has completely surrendered to the US Homeland Security,” Wilson said in the live broadcast of the AIM West Conference in November.

Wilson said people ask him why -- if the Tohono O’odham is sovereign -- is the US Border Patrol on the Tohono O’odham Nation. "In Indian country, we are not sovereign nations, we are not even sovereign people,” Wilson said.

In response, Mohawk Warrior Mark Maracle said that Mohawks do not wait for anyone to tell them that they are sovereign. "You don't have sovereignty unless you assert sovereignty,” Maracle told Censored News.

“The United States and Mexico are not sovereign nations.”

“We tell them we are sovereign. We don’t wait for them to tell us that we are sovereign. We tell them. If you want sovereignty, you have to make sacrifices.”

Maracle said Mohawks have stood up against the state police, federal agents and all forms of government.

"We keep reminding them that this land belongs to us,” Maracle said.

Maracle said it is the same as dealing with bullies and cowards. “They have to remember the power is in the people.”

“The worst enemies are our own people, the ones who are traitors. Traitors for the invaders.”

Media in 2015: Cardboard Con Artists Flop in the Shade

The most censored issue in 2015 includes the media itself. A cardboard stand-up Flim Flam man now flounders where journalism once stood.

Here's how the system works. The national American Indian media and websites deceive their readers into believing that they actually have reporters out covering the news. It is a massive system of fraud, which uses plagiarism, re-writes and stay-at-home reporters who make phone calls to disguise the plagiarism. 

With copy and paste, they plagiarize from the web without permission, and rewrite to avoid being present which would mean carrying out real journalism. They rewrite press releases and steal copyrighted photos and get paid to do it.

Funding to pay for real journalism is not the issue. Indian Country Today is owned by the wealthy Oneida Nation of New York. ICT terminated its real journalists, who actually went out and covered news stories, beginning in 2006, and replaced reporters with stay at home re-writers and plagiarizers. 

Indianz is owned by the wealthy Ho-Chunk Inc. of Nebraska. Ho-Chunk Inc. also received a contract from the US government for domestic and international spying, with an office at the Pentagon. 

What is the real agenda of the national media? You decide.

Why did Navajo Times continue to rely on non-Indian reporters in 2015 for much of its coverage, when the majority of Native American journalists can not find jobs?

The point is control. Are publishers and editors in Indian country afraid that they can not control authentic Native American journalists?

Perhaps publishers and editors are afraid that the real issues might be laid bare -- including the fact that Sen. McCain's goal has been to rob Native people -- while riding in their parades as a faux hero.

Perhaps it is hard to keep real reporters quiet about the three coal-fired power plants on the Navajo Nation and the fact that they are leading dirty coal polluters in the world.

Perhaps real reporters would point out the Raytheon Missile factory on the Navajo commercial farm, NAPI, and question if years of planting with Monsanto seeds on NAPI has resulted in the mutation of traditional local crops.

As for the national news in Indian country, it is clear now that the deep pockets of casino funding have not created a new age of authentic journalism.

Casino funded national news has resulted in a new era of plagiarism, fraud and short cuts.

The Rest of the Story that the Media Concealed

Meanwhile, the media never told you the rest of the story. Former Navajo Chairman Peter MacDonald never took that multi-million dollar bribe from real estate broker Byron "Bud" Brown for the real estate flip sale of Big Boquillas ranch.

McDonald went to jail and prison for a decade. Brown later admitted in federal court that Brown put those millions in Brown's offshore bank account. Brown admitted in federal court that he had lied under oath, and received immunity from the US government to do it. 

Brown's long stream of lies under oath came as the US government wanted to silence MacDonald in regards to Navajo water rights.

MacDonald planned to press for the Winter's Doctrine water rights for Navajos in federal court, ensuring Navajos would have their rights to expansive water rights needed for future generations. 

However, with the intervention of non-Indian attorneys, employed by the tribe, MacDonald went to prison, and the Winter's Doctrine water rights were lost.

The schemes for defrauding American Indian Nations of their water rights has now spread across the west. The schemes of the so-called water rights settlements are carried out by Congressmen and non-Indian attorneys employed by the tribes.

Sen. Gosar called cops on Apache
grandmothers

Meanwhile, Apaches continue to fight the copper mine that Sen. McCain sneaked into the defense spending bill, which would desecrate Oak Flat ceremonial grounds by gouging out the earth for a massive copper mine for Resolution Copper.

When San Carlos Apache led a delegation to Washington to fight the bill, and defend sacred Oak Flat, Apache grandmothers went calling on Rep. Paul Gosar in his Congressional office in Washington. 

Gosar called the cops on them.

Meanwhile, Apaches continue their resistance camp at Oak Flat.

When it comes to defending Oak Flat, Apache youth Naelyn Pike, 16, granddaughter of Wendsler Nosie, rose to the forefront. Listen to her words on this video, at Oak Flat, by Christine Prat:

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/10/sacred-oak-flat-apache-youth-naelyn.html

The bottom line is the slow and toxic genocide in Indian country, carried out by the US government, corrupt tribal officials, Congressmen, non-Indian attorneys, and the big players in the red light district: The media who can be bought and sold.

Now you know the rest of the story.

Read more at Censored News

Navajos Chase McCain off Navajo Nation
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/08/dine-protesters-chase-john-mccain-off.html

Israel's Elbit targets Tohono O'odham with spy towers
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/09/us-israeli-pact-targets-traditional.html

Tohono O'odham and Mohawk on US Border Patrol and Sovereignty
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/11/mohawk-and-tohono-oodham-sovereignty.html

The Rest of the Story: Peter MacDonald: How lies under oath sent MacDonald to prison, and Navajo Winter's Doctrine water rights were lost, with letter from MacDonald to Censored News on water rights:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/11/us-theft-of-water-rights-and.html

Gosar calls cops on Apache grandmothers
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/07/ariz-rep-gosar-calls-cops-on-apache.html

Brenda Norrell has been a news reporter in Indian country for 33 years. She began as a reporter for Navajo Times, during the 18 years that she lived on the Navajo Nation. She was a stringer for AP and USA Today during those years, covering the Navajo Nation and federal courts. After serving as a longtime staff reporter for Indian Country Today in the Southwest, she was censored, then terminated in 2006. Because of this, she created Censored News, with no advertising, grants or revenues, to expose what Indian Country Today was censoring. Since 2006, she has traveled with the Zapatistas through Mexico, and provided live coverage of events throughout the west, and the Mother Earth Conference in Bolivia, without pay.


Censored News depends on readers to survive, please share our links!
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/12/chasing-mccain-away-brazen-acts-of.html
For permission to repost this article, contact brendanorrell@gmail.com

Economic Blackmail: The New McCarthyism in Indian Country News

John Kane, Mohawk

Does truth-telling in the media now mean that you have to work for free in America?

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Dutch translation by Alice Holemans, NAIS Gazette

It is sad that John Kane, Mohawk, can not find any sponsors to keep his radio show, 'Let's Talk Native,' going.

Is this what happens now to the truth-tellers in the media? Does telling the truth in the media now mean that you have to work for free in America?

During the Boarding School Tribunal in Green Bay, Wisconsin, it was John Kane who called in to provide radio coverage. The only media there was Govinda of Earthcycles and Censored News. None of us are paid for our work. In fact, as John's message below shows, we can't even attract enough donations to cover our expenses to keep going.

The point is that the media has collapsed and a form of economic blackmail is present. It is just as serious as the blacklisting of McCarthyism. It is just carried out in a different manner.

At the same time, this black hole of journalism has created a door for heroes to walk through. It offers us the chance to be present and cover the stories that no one else will, a chance to broadcast the ideas that could transform this planet.

Surely future generations will look back for kernels of truth, and will celebrate those that survive.

With the high costs of travel, equipment, radio airtime and more, the truth-tellers, even when they offer their labors of love for free, are finding there is no way to keep going.

The problem with grants and advertising is that neither are free. Each comes with a price.

As Hopi elder Dan Evehema told me years ago, "Don't ever take grants, or they will own you."

As for big money advertisers, look at the effects that casino, mining and CIA ads have had on Indian country news. The majority of what you have today is either plagiarism by stay-at-home reporters, or fluff by writers surfing and re-writing the web. 

Those stay-at-home reporters have also found cash bounty in the good-hearted activists who pay their own way to share the news. Those stay-at-home plagiarizers get a paycheck from what they seize from the web.

What you have today in the news is the void remaining from the issues that are censored.

• 
  

John Kane posted this message on Sunday:

Tonight is to be my final "Let's Talk Native…" program. WWKB would like me to stay on but the cost of paid programming has always been a challenge and the lack sustainable funding has made the show in its existing form and location unsustainable as well. I will make a plea tonight to continue to support my costs associated with travel to NYC for my show there and I will make what will likely be my final pitch to cover the costs for the billing cycle I am completing with my show here in Buffalo. I have been asked if I would be willing to continue through the month of April and I will say that if there is support for me to continue through next month, with firm commitments to cover the airtime on a weekly basis I would consider doing so.
But join us tonight with your calls and thoughts as we look back on this show and look for future opportunities to keep the conversations going.
Let's Talk!

Contact John at jmkane1220@aol.com

Brenda Norrell has been a news reporter in Indian country for 33 years, beginning at Navajo Times during the 18 years that she lived on the Navajo Nation. She served as a freelance reporter for AP and USA Today covering the Navajo Nation and federal courts. After being censored and terminated as a staff writer for Indian Country Today, she created Censored News, now in its 9th year with 3.8 million pageviews.

brendanorrell@gmail.com

Mohawk John Kane's new radio talk show: 'Let's Talk' on WBAI

By John Kane, Mohawk
Let's Talk, WBAI
Censored News

My new show, Let's Talk with John Kane is the return of WBAI's talk-back programming. Join me every Thursday morning from 10 am till noon. Listen on WBAI FM99.5 or streaming on www.wbai.org and participate by phone at 212-209-2900. Let's Talk will feature guests and commentary but most of all, you. We will look at issues from NYC to the New York State, from the regional to the national and, of course, within the shadow of the U.N., we'll definitely hit global issues. Will I talk about Native issues? You bet! But no matter what the topic, I'll offer a Native perspective into the conversation. This two-hour program is your opportunity to join me on air. My new Facebook group page associated with the new show is "Let's Talk with John Kane on WBAI in NYC" join the group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1602087393359258/. The page lets the conversation continue and provides another way to interact with the show. Comments and posts will be monitored during our live broadcasts and throughout the week. Join the group and add your friends.

JOHN KANE BIOGRAPHY

John Karhiio Kane is a Mohawk from Kahnawake. He lives on the Cattaraugus Territory of the Seneca Nation and has a direct connection to the people and territories of the Six Nations. John has been involved for most of his adult life in Native issues and, specifically, defending Native sovereignty. He was part of the First Nations Dialogue Team in the late 90s and worked extensively with the League of First Nations in battles with New York State over taxation.

John hosts "Let's Talk Native...with John Kane" – now in its fifth year – LTN airs for two hours on ESPN Sports Radio WWKB-AM 1520 in Buffalo, New York. John is just wrapping up a year as the interim host for “First Voices Indigenous Radio” on WBAI-FM (Pacifica) in New York City. That year has earned him a brand new show on WBAI. "Let's Talk with John Kane" is a return to WBAI's talk-back programming. The show airs Thursday mornings from 10 till noon and features guests, commentary and the very interactive New York caller audience. John’s strong voice on Native issues has earned him numerous invitations to appear on “The Capitol Pressroom with Susan Arbetter,” an influential public radio program that broadcasts from the New York State Capitol in Albany and airs in 20 markets throughout the state. Arbetter has also featured John on her television news segments  on “The Capitol Report,”  which air during local news throughout New York. John has appeared on WGRZ Buffalo Channel 2's (NBC) “2 Sides with Kristy Mazurek” — he is called upon as an expert commentator on Native issues. He also has appeared on “Time Warner Cable News,” Time Warner Cable’s 24-hour cable network in Albany and Buffalo, New York  (two of the network’s four regional news channels). In 2013, John was featured in “Shinnecock,” a one-hour documentary produced by Thom Hoffman about the Shinnecock people and their history on Long Island, N.Y.

In June 2013, John provided commentary about the obstacles faced by North American Native peoples on “From Washington,” the global live broadcast from Washington, D.C., of Al-Jazeera International, which has more than 260 million viewers in 130 countries. In November 2013, John and his radio show were featured in an Al-Jazeera Arabic special report that was broadcast to 50 million viewers in the Arab world.

John also has been a regular guest/commentator and guest host on WBAI-FM (Pacifica) in New York City; WPFW-FM, Washington, D.C., KFAI-FM, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn.; and KQRS-FM, KXXR-FM and WGVX-FM, Minneapolis. His monthly guest appearances on “The Martha Fast Horse Show” in Minneapolis are also syndicated on KINI-FM, the voice of the Rosebud Lakota in South Dakota. In May 2013 and 2014, he was selected as one of just a few out-of-state radio hosts to be included in KFAI-FM’s special 24 hour-long day of Indigenous programming, “Turtle Island: Voices Rising.” In 2014, John’s strong support of the Hawaiian independence movement has earned him a voice on Hawaiian radio. In July and August 2014, John was featured on “Living Sovereign,” a weekly live talk show hosted by Puanani Rogers on KKCR-FM, community radio in Hanalei/Kilauea on the Island of Kauai.

John and "Let's Talk Native..." have been featured in Buffalo Spree Magazine and the ARTVOICE and have earned mention in the New York Times, The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. He participated in the UN's International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples program on August 9, 2012, in a program titled, "Indigenous Media: Empowering Indigenous Voices.” John's words to the assembly earned three rounds of applause and an unplanned reception line at the close of the program. In June 2013, John was one of just a handful of Native speakers at the 2013 Left Forum “Mobilizing for Ecological/Economic Transformation” Conference at Pace University in New York City. The Left Forum gathering is the largest annual conference of a broad spectrum of left and progressive intellectuals, activists, academics, organizations and the interested public. In January 2014, John was a featured speaker at “Who Decides You’re Real? Fixing the Federal Recognition Process” sponsored by the Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law’s Indian Legal Clinic at Arizona State University/Tempe. In early 2014, John received a Community Leader Media Award from the National Federation for Just Communities of Western New York. He is a member of the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA).

John has been a contributing columnist for “The Two Row Times,” a weekly news publication that reaches the Ontario-wide Native market and Haudenosaunee communities in the U.S. His columns and other writings are featured in Censored News, a collective of Indigenous and other grassroots writers focused on human rights and the protection of Mother Earth. John also writes the Native Pride blog, which can be found at  HYPERLINK "http://www.letstalknativepride.blogspot.com" www.letstalknativepride.blogspot.com. His radio shows and appearances are posted on the blog with articles, quotes and links. His blog has readers in 20 countries. John has a page on the  ESPN website at  HYPERLINK "http://www.espn1520.com/pages/17325417.php" http://www.espn1520.com/pages/17325417.php and a "Let's Talk Native...with John Kane" group page on Facebook. His work is also included in the Native Nations Institute’s (University of Arizona) “Indigenous Governance Database.”

John takes pride in tackling the tough issues that face Native people and refuses to participate in the "buffalo speeches" that continue to dumb down Native culture and beliefs. He is not afraid to be labeled a warrior but prefers to be considered a conversationalist and a teacher.

John’s wife of 32 years is Oneida and they have three Oneida children; all are married with children of their own (he has 6 grandchildren with a set of twin boys on the way).